As part of a strategy to encourage academics to focus their teaching on student learning, this set of Guidelines have been drafted based on the initial set of Guidelines at the University of New South Wales, a review of relevant literature on learning and undergraduate education and exemplar sites available on the web. The simple but oft forgotten premise behind the Guidelines is that:
- As academics, our task is to help students learn.
- There is a vast research literature on how students learn and examples of good teaching based on this research.
- As we claim to be research intensive institutions should not our teaching be based on this research?
However, busy academics who have research as well as teaching responsibilities do not have the time to read this research literature on learning. Hence the Guidelines, which are a distillation of that research in an easily accessible form with links to examples of the Guidelines in action that academics might like to adopt or modify to the ultimate benefit of their students. The Guidelines are a set of 16 statements. These statements outline a basis for the development of activities that are likely to enhance student learning – that is, they are guidelines that should inform our teaching. It is not expected that every Guideline will be relevant to and applicable in all learning and teaching practices of an individual academic or institution. Also many teaching activities may be examples of more than one Guideline in action.