Teaching and Learning in the Southern Cross Model

Diploma of Civil Construction (Engineering and Management) student Tayla shares her experience of studying in the Southern Cross Model at Southern Cross University.

My name's Tayla. I'm studying the Diploma of Civil Construction and I'm an online student here at Southern Cross University.

I'm using my diploma as a pathway to get into the Bachelor of Engineering Systems so that I can do Civil Engineering as my specialisation.

The Southern Cross model is changing the way that students are able to study. So instead of you do doing your 13, 12-week session, you actually finish your unit in that first six-week block and then you have a break and then you do your next and your next.

You can take a term off if you need to or you can study more full-time.

It just allows room for you to just be a person.

So, I've already completed two of the units in this new study mode and I love it. It's so good. The teachers are just so on top of it and it's a new thing for everybody, but they're really, really good with it. Everyone's so understanding with it. And while you go a lot faster over that six-week course, it doesn't actually feel difficult. It doesn't feel like you're doing more work. It's just really, really well laid out.

And it gives you a lot more opportunity to study one thing and more in-depth because you're able to study more in a shortened period of time and actually still absorb all of it really well. So instead of doing four subjects at a time you can do two. Which means that you actually pay more attention in your subjects. It means that there's less subjects to divide your attention between. It's easier to concentrate on your assessment tasks and keep track of them and everything like that. It's so much easier as a student.

You can really see the finish line. It really motivates you to stay focused and just it's much easier to stay on topic.

So, I was studying the 12-week model in other universities and it wasn't going well, really wasn't suiting me.

But since coming to Southern Cross, I've gone immediately into this new model and getting high distinctions. And it's a relief and it's incredible. It's so nice.

My name is Davi Martins Algranti. I'm originally from Brazil, and I'm studying business and enterprise at Southern Cross University.

I've been always interested in business, as I want to be a businessman in the future.

And when I finished my high school, I came to Australia to learn English.

Then I took the IELTS course. Southern Cross University offered me a good scholarship.

So, studying in six weeks terms helped me a lot because we have just two units to study, so most of the time you're really focused in these two units and you are not stressed.

I can put everything together and summarise all the learnings that I have got in six weeks for my final assessments.

So, studying in short terms is giving me the possibility to organise my time, focus on my assessments in the right time, and at the same moment, work a little bit.

The Southern Cross Model student experience: Davi

Bachelor of Business and Enterprise student Davi shared his experience of studying in the Southern Cross Model at Southern Cross University.

Staff experiences

And I can be focused and maintain a good experience and maintain good grades.

Having a six-week term, it's a really good way to deliver education for us because, you can be focused and work through your assessments that time and work hard, but then when you have a two-week break, you can relax and recover your energy to come back motivated.

I like to do sports related with the nature. So, here on the Gold Coast, as we have the beach, I can skate along the beach and enjoy a beautiful place. At the same moment, when I'm surfing, I can be in the ocean and be connected with nature.

The teachers, they always support us with all the questions that we have, and they teach in a way that it's fun to learn.

Their passion, you can feel this. They love the job that they are doing.

I feel like studying in short terms, it's the best thing I've ever done, and I would strongly recommend for someone who wants to have a good experience studying and get new motivations to study in short terms because yeah, you will feel good and you can balance your time to work, study and have a good lifestyle.

Staff member James Carlopio describes his Teaching and Learning experience with The Southern Cross Model.

Hello My name is James Carlopio and I've been Southern Cross for about three or four years now, and I've been involved most recently in developing two brand new courses from scratch in the six-week mode.

Can you describe your approach to the unit modules?

We're trying to make the courses much more active rather than passive learning. We're trying to reduce the amount of reading. So in all three of the courses that I've been involved in, there's just there's no textbooks. We have very few but key essential readings. And even those are much more applied, like from a Harvard Business Review article.

Can you describe your approach to class learning in the model?

We've divided the class, learning opportunities into a few different modes, one is, of course, the student has to do the online learning and then when they're done with that and I always request that they do that before they come to the classroom bits. we've got two sessions every week and there's a one hour session and it's sometimes followed literally a back to back with a two hour session or there's a little bit of a gap in between the two. And in the first one hour session, we tend to focus on overview of the unit content to make sure that students understand that content is out of questions. That's the time for them to ask the questions. If there’s something I want to clarify that I couldn't do in writing, because it's so much easier sometimes to talk about things like this, and that the second two hour is truly, totally active.

What principles were important for designing assessments in the new model?

Assessment designed, obviously, when you're designing, of course, is a huge part of it, and we've got a distinctly different, I believe, a view around assessment now with the new model. every component builds on and feeds back and feeds forward to every other component. The end product in the final assessment is a real business plan that people should be able to use if they were really trying to start a business, because not everybody is. Some people just make up a hypothetical and some people starting their careers. But for the people who are really trying to start a business, the idea is to come up with a true business plan at the end. the feedback on the assessment is that they love that cumulative effect.

How was the student engagement in the model?

I have always been sensitive to the fact that students need a voice and, you know, you have to get the group talking and you have to get individuals engaged in asking questions and thinking.

I always think about the fact that the learning actually the most important person in the room is not the person at the front of the room. The learning happens in the seats in the room. I that's where the action is happening.

If they're not engaged, they're not listening, if they're not engaged, they're not talking and it's just not working for anybody.

What did you enjoy about teaching in the new model?

I love the sprint nature of the six week course that you can get just since me. And I think it suits the times. And that's what the students say. You know, it's the way we're used to working. It's the way we're used to living right now. We get in, we get engaged, we do something, and then we move on to something else. And that's that, I think the biggest the biggest change in my mentality, the biggest point about the whole system that fits with the world today, the way people process information today, the way young people want to have university education fit into their lives.

That, to me, is the most impressive.

And of course, that's hard. You know, if you've ever done real world sprinting, you're exhausted at the end of that that 100 metre dash, 200 metre dash. You're tired at the end of that that six week period. So, you know, you have to learn the skill of recuperating and rejuvenating during those two weeks. And I've heard lots of students talk about, oh, good, I'm going to take a couple of weeks off now and, you know, go away and rest because I've got to come back and get right into it again for the next six weeks.

So those are the biggest things that come to my mind.

Staff member Robert Rollins describes his Teaching and Learning experience with The Southern Cross Model.

Hi, my name is Robert Rollin, and I've been lecturing in the Department of Engineering. I've been teaching in different courses starting from the associate degree, the Bachelor of Engineering Systems and the two masters degree that we offer at SCU.

So the associate degree in particular was designed to be offered under the new SCU model for the so all the new units and the associate degree in a few units from engineering that we converted were all offered straight out as under the new SCU model.

What do your units look like in the Southern Cross Model?

So I think the you the students like that, it's brief little  capsules of content and the and in my units, I did use a portfolio approach for assessment.

We used three case studies, so we use case studies from the industry. So they're a so this is engineering. So we had a small land development in Lismore that we're using it as an example. We're using the bridge designs from Kyogle Council and as a big project, give them the appreciation of a large project.

We would use the Coffs Harbour bypass on the Pacific highway.

I think the portfolio assessment worked well in terms of manageable, that every week did a little bit of work that helps them with their final assessments. And I think the one place I still need to improve is interlinking all of this, that the exercises in the unit content are better link to the story and to the assessment.

How did students respond to the assessments?

So the now the student feedback on the assessment with was, that they really enjoyed the real life examples and they also enjoyed getting to practise every week on the assessments, the portfolio approach, the portfolio approach also promoted interaction between the students.

So they were responsible to submit their answer every week. And then they also were required to critique each other's answers. So basically peer review and learning as a group. So they also enjoyed that. And so I think it really helps. Some of the people with more experience would share their knowledge so people with less experience would gain from that.

What did you learn while teaching in the Southern Cross Model?

A big difference for me is that at the end you need to be very well organised for the grading.

So that means that when you start planning your assessment, you need to think about I'm going to be grading in week six or six or at the beginning week seven, and I need to turn around my grades very quickly. So your assessments have to be planned to facilitate that. I've used a portfolio approach which helps with that approach. So I get to look at their work every week and then at the end it's a bit quicker to mark their final report.

What other advice would you give to colleagues about teaching in the new model?

I think my one best advice pieces of advice would be not to be afraid to ask for help, either from CTL or from some of your peers. I'm a big believer in teamwork and working as a team to deliver a better product. Yeah, I tried to reach out early, make sure CTL knows your needs as early as possible so they can plan it and then work within your faculty in your department to get the team effort to deliver great units for our students.

Staff member Liz Goode describes her Teaching and Learning experience with The Southern Cross Model.

Hi, my name's Dr Liz Goode, currently working as a teaching scholar in the Academic Portfolio office. But my usual role is teaching in the preparing success program at SCU College.

How did you approach designing unit modules for the Southern Cross Model?

So the unit modules for me needed to do a public key things as a priority. They needed to be focused and aligned very closely around specific learning outcomes and the concepts and skills required for any upcoming assessment task, so that alignment and the way the modules would sequence and scaffolded was really important.

And another thing I had front of mind was the need to invite students to do things at regular points in the modules. So I tried to develop a rhythm with this. That rhythm of just not letting text, videos or whatever it might be stretch on for too long without giving students an opportunity to do something meaningful or useful. I found that really important as I was putting together the modules.

What did students like about the unit Modules?

Students liked the variety of ways to interact with content. They liked that it wasn't just reading, but they could watch things. They could listen to things they could do, little activities that varied. Maybe there was like a quick quiz or drag and drop or a poll that allowed them to see their peers’ responses, too.

They also like that doing those kinds of things build their confidence. So it was an opportunity to gain familiarity with terms and concepts, to test out and try things, to go back and review when they needed, and to see what they're needed to focus on as well. So things that they wanted to follow up in class or to understand better. They got a sense of that from working through the modules, and they found that really helpful and really useful when they came to class, they felt like they already had a bit of a leg up and they enjoyed working through the interactive modules as well.

How did you approach to class learning in the model?

So class learning for me was principally about extending and expanding and going a little bit further than the modules to apply, to discuss, to investigate, in order problem solve the kinds of things that the modules covered.

So it's an active space where I feel students need to be doing activities that are meaningful and connect really clearly with the assessments and the learning outcomes. So you learned about this in the modules or you need to do this in your assessments. Let surface some of the questions or uncertainties that you might have. Let's talk about it together. Let's practise. Let's apply what you're learning in really relevant and useful ways.

What did students like about the classes?

In my conversations with students, they have highlighted a couple of things that they did like about the classes. Probably the main one is for social aspect of the classes. So they really enjoyed being able to be around and speak with other students, whether that was online or in a face to face classroom. So to see where others are out, to get to know each other and to do things like brainstorm in groups.

They really enjoy being able to discuss and analyse and make a start on assessment tasks and get clarification about the assessments. So what's expected, whether they're interpreting the task are regularly, whether they're on track, I found, was really valued by students as well.

What did you enjoy about teachi​ng in the new model?

I really enjoy the structure of it so that students have a variety of opportunities for learning that really complement each other. So it's not all about the modules, it's not all about the classes or all about the assessments, but it's all of those things working together. I really enjoyed that. I think that's a really powerful combination that has the potential to debate a learning partnership. So it allows the student, tutor the institution to work together to achieve a really great learning experience.

I've enjoyed the aspect of the new model.

Overall, what do you think about the new model compared to the 12-week model?

I think that the new model is really powerful and I keep coming back to that word powerful the way the interactive, self access modules and the classes where you apply and extend and work with peers and well designed scaffolded assessment tasks and work together to facilitate learning in ways that build students confidence and sense of achievement. I think that's really powerful. So that active, very aligned pedagogy has the potential, I think, to be immensely effective and I really like the more focused nature of it. I remember as a student myself, we often sound it quite overwhelming to be mentally pulled in so many different directions and for each unit to be such a long haul that it became quite exhausting, whereas the shorter, sharper, but deeper experience in the new model and I think the experiences of some of the pilot courses is showing us that learning outcomes in these courses aren't compromised.

Students are learning and achieving in ways that are just as strong or stronger than they did in a 12 or 13 week session.

So these are really positive signs and as an educator, I found it really exciting to witness and be a part of it. So I think the new model is a really positive step.