Commitment to best practice teaching and learning
A Common Unit class
The program showcases best practice in teaching and learning through innovations in flexible learning, teaching practices and assessment. In so doing the Common Units promote quality teaching from its staff who are drawn from disciplines university-wide. Our approaches to teaching and assessment encompass our commitment to empower students through providing a supportive, flexible and developmental climate for learning. All common unit teaching staff receive the following guidelines and professional development for best practive learning and teaching for supporting students learning:
These guidelines are also encapsulated in guides by topic below:
- Teaching
- Assessing
The experiential and developmental pedagogy that underpins the development of learning materials and activities for both internal and external students represents current approaches to empowering students learning and reflects the Common Unit Program philosophy.
Guiding documents for teaching in common units are provided below:
- Effective Pedagogy (pdf 135kb)
- 9 Principles of Teaching (pdf 2MB)
- Support for Low Literacy Students (pdf 251kb)
- Understanding and promoting student engagement in university learning communities (pdf 318kb)
The design of assessments in common units aims for fairness, flexibility and the formative development of students learning. At the same time our assessments play a vital role in preparing students to successfully complete assignments in their course of study. To achieve this, through consultation with discipline staff, the common units model academic genres across disciplines and help students to anticipate the standards and requirements in their disciplinary studies. A number of guiding documents assist us in meeting our aims. The following guiding documents embody our philosophy.
- Assessment Guidelines
- Core principles of effective assessment (pdf 185kb)
- Steps to moderating in the Common Units (pdf 111kb)
- Feedback guidelines and example (pdf 238kb)
