Abstract:

Serving the ‘Greater West’ of Sydney, Australia, a region with a culturally diverse population of over two million and a rapidly developing economy, Western Sydney University (WSU) has approximately 45,000 students distributed across ten campuses in its region, including a growing number of online programs. WSU successfully transformed its curriculum though its ‘blended learning’ strategy. From 2013 to 2015, over 1,000 courses were transformed from predominantly ‘traditional modes of delivery’ to blended learning, and in excess of 40,000 iPads were distributed to commencing students to provide richer learning experiences and access to blended learning materials. The next iteration of transformation is building new technology-enabled campuses and developing commensurate pedagogies, primarily ‘flipped classroom’ models. Enabling strategies that promote successful integration of flipped classroom models recognise the changing landscape in technology, pedagogic practice, and policy. The rigorous and widely consultative process of policy creation and adoption can sometimes be at odds with the rapidly changing pedagogic and technology landscape, however learning and teaching policies should not only reflect change, they should lead change. In this paper a case study will be shared on a policy that was previously fit-for-purpose in 2013 was redundant a couple of years later. The ‘Lecture Recording Policy’ mandated automatic recording of lectures in lecture theatres with automatic uploading to the Learning Management System for student access. At the time, the policy was innovative and ensured student access to content if they could not attend and for review and revision. Students with English as a second language greatly benefitted from lecture capture. However over time, watching habits of students of these recorded lectures showed they were tuning out and not watching the recordings in full or on repeat. Additionally, this policy was outdated for ‘flipped’ pedagogies. Reflecting the transition and focus on flipped learning models, a new ‘Producing and Using Multimedia Policy’ and associated good practice guidelines are being promulgated. This policy and its companion Learning Technologies Policy, which ensures international LMS standards, are described in sufficient detail, along with their instigation by the Learning and Teaching Technologies Advisory Group and subsequent consultative processes, to illustrate how policies promote whole-of-institution curriculum innovation.

Keywords:

Curriculum transformation, curriculum innovation, flipped classroom, policy.