| Pictured at the Nexus launch (from left): keynote speaker Professor T... Pictured at the Nexus launch (from left): keynote speaker Professor Tom Angelo, CEDIR Director Professor Sandra Wills, Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Lee Aisthheimer and Professor Anne MacDougall from the University of Melbourne | | |
UOW Nexus project launched
27 Mar 2008 | Nick Hartgerink
A keynote address from the Professor of Higher Education and Director of the University Teaching Development Centre at Victoria University of Wellington was a highlight of the launch of the Nexus project at UOW on March 26.
Professor Tom Angelo presented the address on the topic Where the Bloody 'L' Is It? Locating Learning in the Teaching-Research Nexus.
The launch was held in the Communications Building along with centres connected via videoconference.
The key objective behind Nexus is to define the relationship between learning and research at UOW. The aim is to identify ways of building on that relationship to improve the learning and research experiences for students and developing staff.
The project consists of work by three groups:
• One led by CEDIR Director Professor Sandra Wills and Professor Anne McDougall from the University of Melbourne will carry out background research, establish a profile for how learning and research are linked, collect and collate a range of examples of good practice and make staff development opportunities available on the web site, develop sustainable activities for UOW and provide advice for a strategic working group.
• A second group led by Faculty of Arts Dean Professor Andrew Wells will focus on Deans' discussion and development to identify curriculum approaches to enhancing the teaching-research linkages
• A third led by the Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Lee Astheimer and Research Student Centre Director Kim Callaway will examine how the profile of the Honours programs across the campus can be better recognised and developed as research activity which will include development of an undergraduate research website and some new programs.
In his address, Professor Angelo focused on teaching, research and study are not ends in themselves. Rather, they are means to the same end.
"In each case, advancement and promotion of learning is - or ought to be - the ultimate goal," he said.
"While some literature on the Teaching-Research Nexus predicts that connecting 'T' with 'R' will inevitably improve 'L', recent research fails to support that hypothesis.
"Forging a powerful and effective nexus is a complex task," Professor Angelo said.
In his address, he considered some practical ways the Teaching-Research-Learning Nexus might be used to promote more effective teaching, more productive research, more motivated and efficient study, and deeper and more meaningful learning.
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