Learners in focus

Learner-centred environment at UTAS At UTAS we aim to make our teaching learner-centred. This means that our teaching staff will encourage you to: engage with the material you are studying to achieve deep learning; set personal learning goals; organise yourself to achieve those goals. Your teachers, using their academic discipline expertise, will guide you on subject content, resources, assignments and assessment, and will offer encouragement and advice.

Expectations of you as a learner

We expect you to take responsibility for your academic progress at university. Specifically, this means that we expect you to:

• reflect on your own learning by thinking about your progress. Try to understand why you might find some areas of learning easier and some more difficult than others. Finally, make a decision on what action you will take to improve your learning in areas that you find difficult;

• set your own personal learning goals and take action to achieve them (see Learning Strategies). For example, if you want to improve your information technology (IT) skills, find out what workshops are available and make a booking;

• organise your study time so that assignments are submitted by the due date;

• know relevant due dates;

• submit assignments on time;

• know your preferred learning style/s, and adopt learning strategies to help you with your studies (see Learning Strategies);

• adopt strategies to understand and think deeply about information presented in lectures, small group learning sessions, readings and other materials (see Learning Strategies);

• practise new skills that are relevant to your course. For example, practise writing reports, taking notes, or using unfamiliar software programs and library search engines;

• discuss your studies with other students, friends, family and teaching staff - talking often helps with understanding;

• use feedback from teaching staff to improve your work. For example, if you are advised to ’improve your grammar’, find out about help with essay writing and make a workshop booking.

What can you expect of the University?

We have an obligation to provide you with a secure, supportive yet challenging environment for learning and teaching. We therefore strive to provide appropriate resources, teaching and study facilities.

We also value student feedback and invite students to:

• provide feedback to teaching staff through the Student Evaluation of Teaching and Learning (SETL) system;

• participate in the functioning of the University through appointment to its committees.

To find out more about the responsibilities of the University to students and of students to the University, click on Code of Conduct for Teaching and Learning at http://www.utas.edu.au/policy/

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