Congratulations to our new BFL Course Symposium recipients!

We were offering three, but somehow we ended up with, wait for it, nine blended and flexible learning (BFL) course symposium grant winners for our second round of offers in 2011! If you haven't heard of the BFL course symposium grants yet, here's a quick background from Assoc Prof Merilyn Childs:

Each proposal was incredibly worthy, and offered insights into how a course-based BFL strategy might be used to provide insights and solutions to a wide range of risks and challenges. Let's take a look at just some:

• In the Faculty of Arts, Brett van Heekeren and his team of Advertising academics will be evaluating their current approaches to BFL in light of their industry's movement towards digital, social and mobile communication strategies. Their aim is to develop a 'future-driven' BFL strategy for the course that maintains currency and continues to develop leading edge students in this world of change. In the same school, Sharon Schoenmaker and her team of Public Relations academics will be looking at, among other things, how to create equivalent experiences in the highly practical components of their course for distance students. And on the Wagga campus, Bill Anscombe and his team in Social Work will be focusing on their residential school program, and how they can enhance their practice to ensure maximum equivalence and engagement for their students.
• In the Faculty of Business, Jason Howarth and his team have been busy with the STAR project, and will now be looking at how a blended and flexible learning strategy might fit with (and extend) work already completed in relation to the first year experience.
• In the Faculty of Education, Wendy De Luca will look at how she and her team can develop a more coherent and consistent course experience for their students despite increasing casualisation of staff. Margaret Torode and her team in Human Movement will be looking at how good practice can be maintained in the changing nature of their courses, with more flexible movement into and between courses in the near future.
• In the Faculty of Science, Gayle Smyth, Janelle Wheat and their teams will be looking and how they can best engage their distance students in authentic learning experience, especially in clinically based subjects;
• Finally, the Robin Wills and his Study Link team will be evaluating their current BFL approach, and explore how they may best foster multi-literacies in a world where the required literacies are moving and changing with developments in the digital age.

The full list of recipients is listed here:

At the moment, each of the Course Directors/Leaders are busy planning their symposiums, with some happening in a matter of weeks, and others involving a series of pre-symposium activities to prepare staff before a face-to-face strategy meeting early next year. Over the next few weeks, we'll be adding the teams to the BFL Course Symposium webfolio, so you'll be able to check in with their plans and progress. The outcomes from each symposium will be a BFL course strategy/plan, a series of sharable learning 'objects' or designs and a School-based presentation on the process and outcomes of their work.

Congratulations once again to all the successful teams! If you missed out, more symposiums will be on offer next year. :)

BFL initiatives launched in Bathurst

Director of the FLI, Professor Mike Keppell and Deputy Director, A/Prof Merilyn Childs, at the launch of the "Practitioner's Voice" DVD

Last Wednesday, FLI launched a range of initiatives to support course teams in developing a course-based BFL strategy. We've since announced most of those initiatives independently here on this blog: the BFL wiki, course team symposiums, the 'Exploring Good Practice' DVD, our Delicious bookmarking site and of course, this blog itself.

It was great to see so many people at the launch - Prof Ross Chambers, our DVC, and A/Prof Ken Dillon, our new Dean of Studies were there, along with Katherine Klapdor, Director of Educational Design and Media, former and current teaching fellows, and a range of staff from across the university, particularly Learning and Teaching Services.

We have recorded the launch, and hope to have this available soon to those who were unable to make it. If you're interested in viewing a trailer of the DVD, check it out here:



Otherwise, please contact FLI for your copy.

So where to now?

Well, there's quite a bit happening over the next few months:

• On August 18, we'll be facilitating a CSUDegree bookclub event around BFL - for more information, check What's New. 
• Following on from the bookclub, we'll be holding a series of special 59mins@FLI online meetings around each of the 5 perspective areas. 
• Three more symposiums are being offered - deadline 31 August, 2011.
• We'll be distributing the Good Practice DVD more widely, especially to L&T committees. If you'd like to get in early, contact fli@csu.edu.au
• We'll be holding two workshops and some presentations at CSUEd in November - one on developing your own DIY course symposium, and another on the aspirational framework. 
• We'll be building on the material already included in the BFL wiki, including more case studies.

Thanks to the many people who made the DVD happen: of course, to James Childs-Maidement, our fantastic Media Officer who did all the filming and editing; to Amy Felke for her assistance in locating CSU images; to the LTS production staff, especially Ian Lloyd, Ian Hamilton and Tony O'Neill; to LTS' educational design team for ongoing feedback; and especially to our FLI Teaching Fellows - Yann Guisard, Jenny Sappey, Chris Bushell, Brad Edlington, Lyn Hay, Jacquie Tinkler, Lucy Webster, John Rafferty, Richard Taffe - for so graciously sharing their insights and experiences in relation to blended and flexible learning.

Let the mad rumpus begin!

New course team symposium grants available

The Blended and Flexible Learning Course Symposiums are designed to support course teams in thinking about how they are currently using blended and flexible learning strategies in their course, and how these might be enhanced, to optimise the learning and teaching experience.

Peter Mills gets busy in the Bachelor of
Agricultural Business Management
course symposium on Friday.

Grant recipients are awarded $2000 per course to develop a BFL course strategy which indicates how blended and flexible learning will be embedded into the student experience across the course. This strategy can be used by the team in its Course Review as per the CSU Degree Initiative (blended and flexible learning), and should be developed in consideration of the principles and perspectives approach to good practice in BFL, outlined in the BFL wiki. The course team will also identify examples of BFL strategies developed during and following the symposium for sharing with the CSU community.

To apply, check out our Course Team Symposium webfolio, where you'll find details of current symposiums, as well as how to apply in 2011. Applications close on August 31, 2011.