Speaker
Description
Universities across Australia face shared educational challenges: declining student attendance since COVID, increasing pressure to design secure assessment in the age of large language models (LLMs), and students struggling with numerical skills. We do not claim to have solved these problems; rather, we see the AIP Congress as an opportunity to share our evolving approach and seek feedback from colleagues facing similar challenges. At UNSW, the planned return to 12-week semesters in 2028 provides a timely opportunity to review our curriculum. In this talk, we outline our emerging priorities and invite discussion informed by others’ experience.
TEQSA guidance on securing assessment in the age of AI emphasises program-level, rather than unit-level, design. In response, we are moving away from a siloed model, where academics focus only on their own courses, towards a more coordinated approach with greater transparency across the major. QILT data suggest that clear structure, expectations, feedback, and teaching quality are strong predictors of student belonging, engagement, and retention. To support this, we are developing course-level documents that articulate weekly learning outcomes and map connections across the curriculum.
Physics-specific considerations include the placement of laboratories, the development of computational skills, and students’ ability to apply appropriate numerical methods. Currently, laboratory exercises are embedded within theory courses and undertaken at varying times due to equipment constraints. We are exploring a dedicated laboratory course focused on experimental skills and numerical methods, alongside workshops embedded within theory courses to develop computational capability.
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