Enhancing the student experience:

ANU as a case study

Richard Baker

Pro-Vice

Chancellor

(Student

Experience)

Outline of talk

1. Need to remember what is so special about universities

in general and then identify what is special about our

individual universities and then do everything we can to

enhance these respective strengths

2. Need to examine the complex interconnections of the

student experience and focus on improving positive

feedback loops

3. Value of high impact learning strategies of George Kuh

4. Value of a focus on student leadership

5. Value of making the most of the research-education

nexus

6. Conclusions

Aung San Suu Kyi

and ANU students last Friday

What is the purpose of

universities?

The purpose of universities

“A University is a place … where inquiry is

pushed forward, … discoveries verified and

perfected, and … error exposed, by the collision

of mind with mind, and knowledge with

knowledge”

Newman, J.H. The idea of the University. Notre Dame

University Press. 1852.

5

“Thus is created a pure and clear atmosphere of

thought, which the student also breathes.”

Distinctive aspects of ANU

• 34% of students living on campus

• Equal number of graduate and undergraduate

students – c10,000 of each – on one campus

• Approx. half our commencing undergrad students

enrolling in double degrees

• Research-led education focus

• Access to national cultural institutions in walking

distance

• Long history of Asia-Pacific research focus

• National focus of our domestic student intake –

highest % interstate of any Australian university?

Quality of our students

• Wonderful mix of rural and urban Australians

and of international students and Australian

students

• Demonstrating extraordinary leadership

Bhiamie picture

Extent to which ANU

community is

intellectually stimulating

Extent to which

ANU supports

student health and

wellbeing

Extent to which student

activities are integrated

into ANU research culture

and practice

Extent to which ANU

students are empowered by

their intellectual and social

experiences

Quality of campus

and extracurricular

experience

Quality of ANU

student experience

Quality of ANU

student experience

Quality of campus

and extracurricular

experience

Extent to which ANU

community is

intellectually stimulating

Extent to which

ANU supports

student health and

wellbeing

Extent to which student

activities are integrated

into ANU research culture

and practice

Extent to which ANU

students are empowered by

their intellectual and social

experiences

Extent of Alumni support

for ANU

Ability of ANU to

attract high quality

students and staff

Attractiveness of

ANU as a centre of

learning

Reputation

of ANU

Strength of Alumni connection with the

ANU

Ability of ANU

graduates to build

influential careers

Ability of ANU graduates

to lead in Australian and

International communities

ANU effort develop

innovative curricula

Extent and quality of ANU

research

ANU

commitment

to providing a

rich student

experience

Creating pathways between:

Domestic students International students

Residential students Non-residential students

Students from different degrees Students from different degrees

Current students Former students

Research Teaching

Groups who are traditionally poorly represented at universities ANU

It was teachers who thought

outside the box who inspired me

• Being asked in High School to run English class

on my favourite author

• Same teacher linked Bob Dylan to TS Eliott, Van

Morrison to WB Yeats

• Life long learning exemplar of best books of the

year to read

• Research led teaching at ANU – Mulvaney’s

suitcase

Need to ignore this advice and think

outside the box to make a difference

to the student experience

George Kuh high impact activities

1. Thinking outside the box – other

ways of doing things – don’t just

teach the way we were taught

2. Making our teaching relevant by

bringing in real world issues and

connecting the known with the

unknown

3. Internships

4. Field courses

High impact activities for

academics

• Cross discipline teaching

• Cross cultural experiences

• Skills in getting effective feedback from students

– e.g. one minute papers, mid course evaluations,

end of course evaluations, reflective student

assessment pieces, letter to future students,

keeping in touch with former students

High impact activities for

institutions

• Linking research and teaching effectively

• Effective student consultation processes

• Effective educational planning processes

• Promoting learning outside the classroom

• Supporting students to become leaders

• Fostering residential and campus communities

• Allowing students and staff to take risks

Leadership focus for ANU

Chieu photo

International students give domestic

students the most extraordinary

learning opportunities

Learning Communities

Lena Karmel Lodge

Our students are global citizens

31

Cross Disciplinary Student

Academy – google “ANU XSA”

Student representation processes in

science at ANU

• Details of 2 reps from each course plus the ANU Student

Association Science reps listed on every LMS page

• Head of Education in each discipline meets class reps

from their areas in week 3-4 to identify and address

issues while course is running

• Director of Science Education end of each semester runs

focus groups with all reps

• And separately meets with exiting Honours students and

has regular meetings with ANUSA Science Reps and

ANUSA President and VP

Consultation has benefits

Innovations that came directly from this

student feedback include the

establishment of

1.First year PAL

2.A whole of Science Student Society

3.Interdisciplinary whole of Science first

year course – “Science under the

Microscope”

4.More details google “ANU Science

student representatives”

Peer Assisted Learning

Planning

and share

ideas

Conclusions in 2012 on

research-led education

• Start in first year

• Model research mindedness

• Develop critical thinking and awareness of how

research is done and what researchers do

• Focus at beginning of first year on what is not

known to create inquiry based ethos from

beginning of degree

• Link into lab design and assessment

• Create more research project courses

What is it that our students

value about ANU?

Students clearly value:

• Our small size and flexibility

• maintaining an ANU identity and networks post

ANU – our students see the necessity of life long

learning and are keen to assist us in this task

• opportunities for real application of learning - our

students have a hunger to apply their knowledge in

practical ways

• multidisciplinary approaches and feeling

welcomed across the arts-science bridge

• Research opportunities

“What is the best thing about

ANU” – survey of 86 completing

Science Honours students in 2010

“Moving from learning about science

to doing science”

Teaching-research links

• “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be

kindled” (Plutarch, c46–127 AD).

• So need to focus on process rather than content

• Learning to think like a biologist rather than

knowing all the “stuff” a professor of biology knows

Linking teaching and research a key to

keeping alive students passion to

learn

“Teaching students to be enquiring or research

based in their approach is not just a throwback to

quaint notions of enlightenment or liberal

education but central to the hard-nosed skills

required of the future graduate workforce.”

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/research/teaching Linking

Teaching and Research in Disciplines and Departments - April 2007

Alan Jenkins, Mick Healey and Roger Zetter

Research

led/based/informed/enhanced

teaching is an iterative process that

integrates

• Teaching informed by the research we do

• Developing the research skills of our students

• Researching the effectiveness of our teaching and the learning outcomes of our students

• Need to see research as a continuum of finding out things new to individuals to things new to humankind

All students can engage in

student research

• But to do so we must see “student research as a continuum

of knowledge production, from knowledge new to the

learner to knowledge new to humankind, moving from the

commonly known, to the commonly not know, to the

totally unknown”

• John Willison and Kerry O’Regan 2007 Commonly known, commonly

not known, totally unknown: a framework for students becoming

researchers. Higher Education Research and Development Vol 26

no4, December 2007, 393-409.

The Vice-Chancellor’s Courses

“The Vice-Chancellor’s Courses epitomise ANU.

They are inter-disciplinary in terms of content,

teaching staff and the students enrolled in them.

They involve ANU researchers from different

disciplines sharing leading research ideas and

discoveries with students.”

Four courses that students can

do as part of nearly any ANU

degree

• Unravelling Complexity

• Creating Knowledge

• Leadership and Influence

• Mobilising Research

53

Need interdisciplinary

approaches to solve complex

problems

• VC courses aim to give students skills to see

across disciplines, cultures, time and space

• Really interesting things happening where

disciplines meet

• Eg camera pill for gastrointestinal viewing result

of discussions between missile designer and

gastroenterologist

54

Encourage students to be bold in

taking interdisciplinary approaches

to address real problems

55

Leadership & Influence

• Leadership and Influence gives students

opportunities to directly ask questions of

people who have created major change in

their own fields.

• Guest lecturers have included the Chief

Scientist, prominent Indigenous leaders,

retired high court judges and the former

chief of the armed forces

• The final assessment piece is a group

research project to develop an idea to

improve the ANU student experience that

each group has to pitch to the Vice-

Chancellor

57

Unravelling Complexity

• Examines how engineering, science, maths, visual art,

history, psychology, political science, and other

disciplines address complexity.

• Assessment pieces require students to draw lessons

from different disciplines and apply them to

contemporary global problems

“Universities serve to make students

think: to resolve problems by argument

supported by evidence; not to be

dismayed by complexity, but bold in

unravelling it.”

What are universities for? Geoffrey Boulton and Colin

Lucas September 2008

http://www.leru.org/?cGFnZT00

Unravelling Complexity

• Course has had “field

trips” to the PM’s

office and final

assessment piece

involves groups of

students developing a

solution to a key

problem facing

Australia and to

deliver a brief to the

“PM”

Unravelling Complexity

Student responses to the course

• Very ready to step outside the disciplinary boxes

• Very conscious that many will soon be working in

the “real-world”

• One student described the course as a “think tank”

and “Everything else I am studying is making more

sense in the light of the mode of thinking we are

engaging in”.

• Students putting together ideas in novel ways

Extract from Cathryn

Stephen’s learning journal

Google “ANU Vice-Chancellor’s

Courses” for lots of other examples

of work from this course

What is it that our students

value about ANU?

Students clearly value:

• Our small size and flexibility

• Maintaining an ANU identity and networks post

ANU – our students see the necessity of life long

learning and are keen to assist us in this task

• Opportunities for real application of learning - our

students have a hunger to apply their knowledge in

practical ways

• multidisciplinary approaches and feeling

welcomed across the arts-science bridge

• Research opportunities

ANU’s strengths

• Small human scale and opportunities this presents

• Interdisciplinary options – eg joint degrees

• Our academics are research leaders and our

students are leaders often before they get and even

more after they leave here

• Teaching in a research intensive environment

• Residential colleges

Unravelling Complexity

“Universities serve to make students

think: to resolve problems by

argument supported by evidence; not

to be dismayed by complexity, but

bold in unravelling it.”

What are universities for? Geoffrey Boulton and Colin Lucas

September 2008 http://www.leru.org/?cGFnZT00

Student responses to the course

• Very ready to step outside the disciplinary boxes

• Very conscious that many will soon be working in

the “real-world”

• One student described the course as a “think tank”

and “Everything else I am studying is making more

sense in the light of the mode of thinking we are

engaging in”.

• Students putting together ideas in novel ways

Conclusions – we need to:

define the “student experience” broadly

include both what happens in the class room and

what happens outside it by focusing on the

connections between the two

facilitate pathways for students

Acknowledge and maximize the transformative

power of university education

Thank you for your attention

• Google “Richard Baker ANU” for my personal webpage

• Do email me if you ever have any questions

Richard.Baker@anu.edu.au

My role to facilitate the building

of bridges between:

1. Domestic and international students

2. Residential and non residential students

3. Students in different degrees

4. Current and former students

5. Research and education foci of ANU

6. Groups traditionally poorly represented at

universities and the ANU