Design is fundamental to creating effective, engaging and innovative learning experiences for our students.

Centre for Teaching and Learning

Design

Design is fundamental to creating effective, engaging and innovative learning experiences for our students. Many of you will already be using educational design principles and processes to support the work you do. However, there is a large body of knowledge available to assist those who are new to design and to elevate the current practices of those who are more experienced.

Through their knowledge and expertise in design theory and practice, the CTL offers support in Course Design, Unit Design and the design of Active Learning experiences for tutorials and workshops including the use of technology and other tools. We also design and create resources for conferences and other academic activities including the formatting of documents, multimedia and interactives.

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Course Design

Course design encompasses the mapping, blue printing and holistic design that creates a unified course through backward mapping and course alignment. CTL can provide a Design Studio service that brings together your team through a series of design workshops. Alternatively, you can utilise the resources to initiate and support your own course design process.

Contact ctl@scu.edu.au to arrange design workshops.

Find out more about Course Design   
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Unit Design

Unit design includes mapping your learning outcomes, assessment types, content delivery and learning experiences to achieve constructive alignment. Through the process of design teaching and learning experiences will be motivating, engaging and highly effective. The CTL can provide support through workshops and professional learning as well as a range of resources for unit design, teaching and assessment. Talk to your Director of Teaching and Learning to see what workshops they have organised and/or contact CTL to seek support and suggest professional learning experiences. You might also be interested in engaging with your colleagues through our seminars, symposium and community of practice. We also provide a Foundations to University Teaching Practice to support you as a new academic at SCU.

Find out more about Unit Design   
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Teaching Resource Design

Our Digital Resources team includes a number of skilled professionals with expertise in web design, data/analytics, graphic design, video and audio production, photography and interactive multimedia production.

For examples of the resources we can develop for you visit our Showcase and Innovation page.

Visit our Develop page to start the process   
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Non-unit Resource Design

We support the design of webinar and conference resources, SCU service area resources (e.g. Library, Learning Zone, Orientation), logos, audio visual and other academic engagement resources not specifically required in teaching units but supporting teaching and learning at SCU.

Visit our Develop page to start the process   
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Graduate Attributes

Graduate Attributes are the qualities, skills and understandings a university community agrees its students should develop during their time with the institution (Bowden, 2000). These generic graduate attributes outline the overarching capabilities that will be developed by students. This goes across all disciplines/areas of study. These qualities are intended to equip graduates to be global citizens, and effective members of society who can be agents of 'social good' (Barrie, 2004).

Find out more about Graduate Attributes   
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Understanding Cognitive Load Theory

Research indicates understanding cognitive load (the amount of information that working memory can hold at one time) helps educators to design, develop, and deliver inspired instructional experiences for students. Removing cognitive overload enables teachers to inspire students to learn. The information, techniques, and images from Associate Professor Raina Mason’s 2021 Talking Teaching webinar presentation on Understanding and designing for cognitive load: How to enhance student success is now a professional learning resource.

Find out more about Understanding Cognitive Load Theory   
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