Three UTS projects have won Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education fellowships out of 10 grants that were awarded for 2007 to a total of only five universities.

UTS received one of two Senior Fellowships that were awarded, worth up to $330,000 for Dean of University Graduate School Professor David Boud. UTS Science Faculty's Associate Professor Les Kirkup won an Associate Fellowship worth up to $90,000 with a further Associate Fellowship shared by UTS Faculty of IT's Dr Raymond Lister and Professor Jenny Edwards.

UTS Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) Professor Shirley Alexander said the awards reflected the high degree to which good teaching and consequently high quality learning is valued and supported at UTS.

"All four recipients of the awards have had a longstanding passion for improving learning for students and these awards are an important recognition of this work," Professor Alexander said.

"I am particularly pleased with the award of Professor Boud's Senior Fellowship. Not only is the award an important acknowledgement of Professor Boud's international standing in teaching and learning, but his project is of great significance to UTS and all universities in Australia and the world. Assessment is one of the most neglected aspects of improving learning and we look forward to implementing the outcomes of Professor Boud's Senior Fellowship."

The Carrick fellowship program aims to promote excellence in Learning and Teaching in higher education by supporting leading educators to undertake strategic, high profile activities that will advance learning and teaching in Australian higher education.

Senior Fellowships are awarded to outstanding scholars who are respected advocates for excellence in teaching and learning. Criteria include academic profile, record of leadership; international recognition; the significance of the educational issues addressed; and the originality, likely impact and sustainability of the outcomes.

The Senior Fellowship winning UTS entry by Professor David Boud will address the question: "how can assessment enhance learning in and after courses?" He said it would link international research on how assessment can have a beneficial influence on student learning with Australian policy and practice.

"It will do this through a multi-stage process," Professor Boud said. "An international and national team of expert collaborators will identify key ideas and practices with a sound empirical base. Selected groups of university teachers and managers will then work with these ideas and practices to identify fruitful initiatives for implementation in the overall Australian and local institutional contexts. Then finally they will collaboratively identify strategies to bring about change in assessment at national and institutional level."

"The program will focus on disciplines with typically large classes and disadvantageous staff/student ratios such as business and law," he said.

In his award winning project by Associate Professor Les Kirkup will aim to develop a deeper understanding of the value of service teaching by becoming a participant-observer in second and third year subjects serviced by first year physics at UTS.

"Through 'first hand' familiarity of the classroom, laboratory and other student experiences in the medical, environmental and biological (MEB) sciences, I will determine ways in which physics may best support the education of MEB students," he said. "A distillation of these experiences, as well as perspectives acquired through stakeholder interviews and focus groups, will allow me to develop a framework for guiding the development of physics service subjects adaptable to other disciplines with significant servicing responsibilities such as mathematics and chemistry."

In Raymond Lister's and Jenny Edwards' Associate Fellowship they will combine and build upon their past work to address problems in ICT education. Lister is a co-leader of an international collaboration which studies how novice programmers go about solving typical assessment tasks. The fellowship will provide the opportunity to bring other Australian ICT academics into this collaboration and will also utilise Professor Edwards' background in gender issues, to study attitudes and approaches to programming among women. Previous studies have shown that improving the appeal of ICT for women also improves its appeal to men.

Last year UTS attracted just one Carrick Institute Associate Fellowship which went to Associate Professor Cynthia Mitchell, Research Director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures for Zen and the art of trans-disciplinary postgraduate studies: identifying encouraging and evaluating quality.

For further information about the Fellowships visit the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.