Find out about the latest learning and teaching news and events at Victoria University (VU).

Current news & events

Congratulations to Ms Kathleen Raponi Senior Law Lecturer in the First Year College and Dr Gayani Samarawickrema Senior Lecturer Connected Learning for receiving a 2022 AAUT Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.

Read more about their win.

Day 1: Tuesday 6 December, 12:00 - 4:30pm

Day 2: Wednesday 7 December, 9am - 1:30pm

In December 2022, we held a successful whole-of-VU Learning and Teaching Symposium in a hybrid format of virtual and in-person live streamed presentations. Split over two half days, the event showcased our newly opened VU City Tower. The program featured a thought provoking and insightful keynote address by Professor Patrick McGorry AO on youth mental health as well as two engaging and inspiring panels and themed presentations.

View the Program

View the Recordings (VU login required)

Keynote

Professor Patrick McGorry AO
Youth mental health: A global paradigm shift

Mental health is the major health issue threatening the lives and futures of young people in transition from childhood to adulthood. 75% of mental disorders emerge for the first time by the age of 25 years and around 50% of young people experience at least a period of poor mental health during the transition. There is growing evidence from the National Mental Health Survey and other data, also amplified by the pandemic that the mental health of young people around the world is getting worse.

Professor Patrick McGorry is an Australian psychiatrist known world-wide for his development and scaling up of early intervention, youth mental health services, mental health innovation, advocacy and reform. He is executive director of Orygen, Professor of Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, and founding editor of the journal “Early Intervention in Psychiatry”.Read more

This year Victoria University and Orygen announced a partnership aimed at boosting youth mental health workforce capacity, and ultimately improving mental health outcomes in Melbourne’s northwest. Read more about the partnership.

Watch the 2022 L&T Symposium Keynote Session on YouTube.

Location: VU City Tower (T1516) - Monday and Tuesday
                 Footscray Park (A202) - Wednesday and Thursday

Time: 9am to 4pm

VU Collaborate Help provides support and guidance in the practice of blended learning and VU’s Learning Management System (LMS) VU Collaborate, including help guides, tips and tools.

If you are completely new to VU Collaborate, start with the VU Collaborate new staff checklist.

For help with VU Collaborate, we offer:

  • drop in days
  • online consultations
  • workshops.

See VU Collaborate training to book in for help sessions. If you have any technical issues, please contact the IT Service Desk.

Past news & events

Day 1: Wednesday 29 September, 12:30 - 3:30pm

Day 2: Thursday 30 September, 9am - 12:30pm

In 2021, we once again held a successful whole-of-VU Learning and Teaching Symposium, split over two days. The program featured a keynote address by Emeritus Professor Beverley Oliver, two successful Q&A panels and 50 themed presentations.

With over 100 presenters and 540 registrations across HE, VE, VU Sydney, VU Online, external participants and a number of off-shore partners "hearing from people all over the University that I otherwise would not know about" was a highlight.

Themes

  • Networks and Collaborations
    Within, across and beyond our institution.
  • EDventure of COVID
    Breaking boundaries and strengthening practice.
  • Adaptive and employable
    Students success through authentic assessment and feedback.
  • Unleashing curiosity and creativity
    Innovative practice that supports or engages directly with our unique learners.
  • Pedagogies and practices of care
    Supporting staff and students mental health and wellbeing.

Presentation types

  1. Lightning round: 5 minute presentations + 2-minute question time on a theme.
  2. Plenary sessions: 30 minute active and engaging sessions on a theme. This longer format is well suited to describe a larger project or strategy.
  3. Workshops: 30 minute opportunity to showcase and workshop tech or learning activities, something better experienced than talked about, involving group participation.
  4. Showcase: 10 minutes showcase presentation + 5 minutes question time on a theme.
  5. Video presentation: 5-7 minute showcase presentation on a theme recorded by the presenter.

Question & answer panels

  1. Student Perspectives on studying during the pandemic
  2. Making it real: VU’s commitment to planetary health across the curriculum

Keynote

Micro-credentials are all the buzz, but do they live up to the hype? Will they make a difference, and what should providers be thinking about?

Beverley Oliver, Principal Consultant, EduBrief

Emeritus Professor Beverley Oliver is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Australian National Teaching Fellow based in Melbourne, Australia. She is a non-executive director at Open Learning, an ASX-listed company, and at EduGrowth, Australia’s not-for-profit acceleration network for high-growth, scalable, borderless education. Beverley was formerly Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education at Deakin University (2013-18). She is the founder and editor of the Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability. Her leadership has been recognised through two national Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, several nationally-funded grants and fellowships.

In 2017, she was awarded Deakin University’s highest honour, the title of Alfred Deakin Professor, for her outstanding and sustained contribution to conceptualising the strategic enhancement of courses in the digital economy and furthering Deakin’s research and scholarship in the field of higher education. Beverley now works as a higher education consultant, speaker and researcher focussing on digital education, micro-credentials, curriculum transformation, quality assurance and graduate employability.

Date: Thursday 23 September 2020
Location: Virtual

Victoria University hosted our first Virtual Learning and Teaching Symposium, open to our wider community including VU Sydney, VU Online and Partnerships (TNE). Following the success of both the 2019 Vocational Education and Higher Education Learning and Teaching Symposia, this year’s event reached even more of VU’s passionate teachers.

The theme for the symposium was 2020 Vision: Discovery | Destination

Sub-themes

  • Tales from the COVID face: how we react, how we recover
    Response to COVID-19, what have we learnt, what should we take with us.
  • Passport to beyond
    Preparing students for the world of work. Life long learning partners.
  • Power of stories
    Collaborating with industry, community, partners, international, dual sector.
  • Students as partners
    Co-creating the VU way – the ideology of VU’s Students as Partners.
  • The surprising path
    Alternative ways to look at assessment, what is working, what hasn’t worked.
  • Planetary Health
    Engaging with your local community to improve its health and wellbeing.

Presentation types

  1. Lightning round: 5-minute showcase presentations + 2-minute question time on a sub-theme.
  2. Plenary sessions: 30 minute active and engaging sessions on a sub-theme. This longer format is well suited to describe a larger project or strategy.
  3. Workshops: 30 minute opportunity to showcase and workshop tech or learning activities, something better experienced than talked about, involving group participation.

Question & answer panels

  1. Student panel.
  2. Same but different, teachers from across the VU community.
  3. WEST: VU values in learning and teaching with VU’s learning leaders.
  4. Block around the world featuring block collaborators from Australia and the USA.

Keynote

Associate Professor Phillip Dawson, Associate Director of the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University gave the keynote address at the 2020 virtual L&T Symposium.

Phill's keynote titled 'Developing students’ feedback literacy for study, work and life' focused on how to help students make the most of feedback and develop their 'feedback literacy'.

Date: Thursday 26 September 2019
Location: City Flinders Campus

The theme for the symposium was The VU Way: Work ready | Tech ready | Life ready – breaking the rules in tertiary education.

The program featured a keynote opening address and themed concurrent presentations in a variety of formats including oral presentations, lightning pitches and visual presentations.

Program: The VU Way: Work ready | Tech ready | Life ready symposium program (PDF, 6.5MB) (requires login when off-site)

Intranet: 2019 Learning & Teaching Symposium intranet (requires login when off-site)

Date: Tuesday, 11 June, 2019
Location: City Flinders Campus

Attendees met the global pioneer and force behind Block Model teaching and learning, Professor David Helfand.

Professor Helfand is Chair of the Department of Astronomy at New York’s Columbia University and former President of Quest University, Canada. He has reimagined 21st century tertiary education and his thinking inspired The VU Way, where the revolutionary Block Model is seeing pass and retention rates soar. This was a rare opportunity to hear the international thought leader explain why VU’s Block Model is the ‘New Way To Do Uni.’

Event details

Just focus! The joys & challenges of teaching on the block

The modern human condition is defined by interruptions. The average 18-24 year old consults their mobile phone 86 times per day (5 times per waking hour); the top 10% (yes, many students) touch their phones 5400 times per day. This behaviour is fundamentally incompatible with learning. Carving out islands of tranquility in these hectic days and focusing on a single subject for weeks at a time is transformational.

Professor Helfand recounted the history of intensive, single-subject teaching, reviewed the literature on its results, and described the profound learning experiences that block teaching can produce, along with the operational advantages (and disadvantages) it provides.

Date: 2 August 2018

Ghaith Zakaria, Sonia Wilkie and Tania McDonald took the top prize for the best scientific poster on the educational applications for 3D printing at HERDSA (Higher Education Research & Development Society of Australasia) 2018, held in Adelaide.

The poster documents the 3D printing process and development of educational resources for academics at the University to use. It depicts a series of object-based learning activities which enhance students’ engagement and learning.

3D printing expertise attracts academic interest

The team received a lot of interest on the innovative projects underway. There were many requests from other universities interested in finding out:

  • how they can reproduce their own 3D printed learning objects
  • how they can benefit from VU's experience
  • how the objects can be incorporated with learning activities.

Watch 3D printing videos

Find out about the 3D printing innovations being developed in The Hive (our innovation and co-creation space) at Victoria University:

Meet the team and find out more about the great work they’re doing.

Date: 3 December to 5 December 2018

Location: City Flinders Campus

Victoria University partnered with H5P to host the 2018 H5P Conference. Participants joined other H5P developers, content creators and academics to share experiences, tips and ideas with the global H5P community.

See the H5P program session synopsis.

Date: 12 October, 8 November and 6 December 2016

Location: Footscray Park Campus

Victoria University was proud to host this seminar series to promote the National Innovation and Science Agenda. We considered specific challenges for 'Inspiring Australians to participate in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM).'

Learn more about the 2016 STEM education seminar series.

Date: Thursday 29 September 2016

Location: City Flinders Campus

The 2016 Learning and Teaching symposium Good Practice and Messy Problems was held on Thursday 29 September at the City Flinders Campus, Melbourne.

We considered specific challenges for 'Inspiring Australians to participate in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM).

  • What is STEM? What does STEM enable us to think about and do differently?
    Presenter: Professor Julian Williams, University of Manchester, UK
  • What can be done to encourage more female participation in STEM
    Presenter: Professor Inge Koch, Executive Director Choose Maths, Australian Mathematics and Science Institute/BHP Billiton, University of Melbourne
  • What is new about occupations for STEM graduates? What is it about Big Data that we should pay attention to?
    Presenter: Hamish Treleavan, Executive General Manager of Portfolio and Market Risk, Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

The program featured a keynote opening address by Professor Ian Solomonides, Pro-Vice Chancellor Learning Innovation and Quality. There were concurrent oral presentation sessions and opportunities for informal networking with colleagues over morning tea and lunch breaks, as well as roundtable discussion sessions, a visual display and opportunities for interactive demonstrations during the breaks.

Key topics included:

  • Student transition
  • Blended learning
  • Student success & retention
  • Work integrated learning
  • Student engagement.

Date: Monday 10 March 2016

The CCLT offered several grants of up to $20,000 for technology-enhanced learning initiatives in 2016. It was open to anyone who had a great idea for how they would like to use technology to completely transform their unit or course.

Date: Wednesday 2 September 2015

VU has won a national award which recognises educators who are leading the way in blended learning initiatives using the collaborative platform, Brightspace. Read "VU wins award for use of blended learning platform".

Date: Thursday 1 October 2015

A University-wide Learning & teaching symposium was held during the second semester VE/HE break.

The event showcased Good practice and messy problems and featured an opening plenary address by Provost, Professor Kerri-Lee Krause. The symposium included four concurrent presentations in the following streams:

  • Technology-enhanced learning
  • Student success
  • Engaging contemporary learners
  • The pleasures and perils of internationalising the student experience.

Date: Friday 24 July 2015

Researchers from The Victoria Institute believe the creation of educational opportunities for the most disenfranchised young people in the community should be a primary consideration, as Victoria contemplates how it will become the Education State. Read "Flexible learning key to true Education State".

Ghaith Zakaria with the award-winning poster at HERDSA 2018.