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As your classes start to hit their stride, lots of people are looking for 'tweaks' to fix those niggling challenges that tend to get in the way of you being really happy with what's going on. If you have a challenge like this, get in touch and we'll see if we can find a solution - or if someone else has tackled the same challenge and found a way around it. No challenge too hard (well, there might be, but you know...)

This newsletter we're tweaking strategies for discussions, announcement annoyances and finding quick ways to help students with things that annoy them. Any feedback on these newsletters? Get in touch...the goal is to make them useful so if they're not, we want to know. Oh, and what do you think of the pink?? :)

• Great to see the registrations rolling in for the 2018 BJBS L&T Symposium to be held in Wagga on 12-13 April, don't miss out! The full program is now up on the symposium website and sign-ups for the workshops are now open.
• As flagged in previous newsletters a new Interact2 visual theme went live on 9 Feb. Despite assurances that there would be no change to existing i2 functionality, there have been some dramas. A revised version of the theme went live on 23 Feb (with reduced base text size, increases to maximum page width, fixes to the print function, table borders) and another on 8 March (addressing formatting issues with Tests and Grade Centre). If you still have functionality issues please log an SRS. If you want to provide some feedback use the Yammer thread or email me.
• A new special considerations workflow is due to go live in the next few weeks. Invites for training sessions out soon. For further info contact Kaye Aylmore.
• A new Subject Outline system is currently being built to replace the clunky old Sakai-based MSI tool. The first release is planned for 12 April 2018 to enable testing in the 201845 sessions prior to a second release for the 201860 session. Importantly you can continue to prepare outlines for any session in the current MSI system. The next project showcase is scheduled for Thursday 5 April (12-1pm) and Lucy Webster will be running hands-on workshops at our symposium on 12 April, sign up here.

Hello! The first round of the Higher Education Sector Report has been completed, along with further data gathering on Work Integrated Learning (WIL) within subjects by SPI. Thanks to all those who provided information about their subjects; if your subject wasn't chosen by SPI we can flag it separately - I'm happy to chat further with anyone about this project. It's looking more likely that future government funding will be linked to WIL, so developing a complete picture of WIL in our Faculty is an important task!

The NSW/ACT Australian Collaborative Education Network (ACEN) held its annual Chapter meeting in Sydney recently. It was an excellent workshop, and it's clear many Universities are ramping up their efforts in this space, with lots of innovative projects from the leading WIL/WPL institutions.

There are also many exciting WPL projects happening here at CSU, and I’m hoping to share more with you next month. In the meantime, at the L&T Symposium I'll showcase a WPL Challenge Bank that I've been working on with Carole Hunter. It offers students a way to personalise their development of employability skills, and we have exciting plans as we move into Stage 2. Be sure to come along and check it out.

That’s it from me for now. As always, if you have a WIL or WPL story to tell me I’d love to hear about it – just drop me an email and we can line up a time to chat. Liz

Don't forget that all PD sessions - upcoming, as well as past recordings, can be found in the Faculty PD Calendar. You can also check out other professional opportunities on the institutional PD calendar or the sessional staff PD site.

• 13 March 1-2 pm: QAing examination scripts Have you been asked by a colleague to review their exam paper? What should you be looking for when you QA an exam? This workshop will guide you through the process of writing and reviewing exam scripts and test questions.
• 20 March 1-2 pm: Writing good learning outcomes What is a good learning outcome? Why would we rewrite the ones we have already? Writing assessment tasks to align with learning outcomes can identify that the learning outcomes need to be rewritten. Maybe they are not at an adequate level to meet AQF standards. Maybe they are not measurable. Maybe they don’t align with the learning activities. Are they too vague, or too prescriptive? How many is too many? How do you get them changed anyway? Explore the answers to these questions, or bring your own.

Email: chunter@csu.edu.au
Phone: 02 636 57127
Twitter: @carolelhunter

Email: wbaines@csu.edu.au
Phone: 02 6338 4438