How a Business subject is being redesigned to use UTS's new spaces

Lecturer:
Simon Darcy

Faculty:
Business

Project:
Integrative engagement and the Venue Business: Wicked problems, industry based technology and redesigning the curriculum for the new learning environments

Keywords:
Design, integrative thinking, multidisciplinary, flipped education, multimedia

Professor Simon Darcy is redesigning his classes to take advantage of the new large collaborative space in Building 6 and the technological opportunities for learning it offers.

What the project is about 

Professor Darcy is introducing a more innovative research-inspired and industry-based practice in his postgraduate subject through integrative thinking. Moving away from the traditional lecture model into a more interactive multimedia-based learning framework, the subject is incorporating feasibility planning, experience development, business modelling, and design-thinking workshops.

Why the project is being introduced

Professor Darcy found that the subject’s industry and research practices had outgrown the traditional lecture/workshop format and environment, and that more collaborative group work was needed to increase students’ understanding of the subject’s content.

The subject draws on a transdisciplinary approach involving economics, construction and architecture. So Professor Darcy can’t assume students’ knowledge on anything as they come from diverse undergraduate backgrounds and from a multitude of cultural contexts. Because of this, Professor Darcy is looking to introduce an ongoing portfolio assessment that includes a reflective element to improve student engagement.

How the project is being implemented

The project is being executed through:

• Utilising new spaces and new technologies
• Increasing the level of multimedia within the case study approach to learning
• Redesigning the subject’s curriculum through assignments and pod-based collaborative learning activities.

The class of 80-90 students is divided into clusters of six to eight students in the pod-based groups. As the group is a combination of Australian and overseas students, Professor Darcy is randomly assigning the groups of students and changing them every two weeks to promote peer-to-peer networking and diversity in groups' ideas.

Each two-and-a-half hour workshop will have a different format, but each one includes:

• Mini lecture (15 to 30 minutes)
• Scenario-based learning
• Service economy engagement
• Experience development
• Stakeholder role-playing
• Venue CAD
• Risk sense
• Industry specialists and on-site lectures

Professor Darcy says that this new format invites students to learn in a more professionally relevant way, compared to how the subject has been traditionally taught. 

Exploring further
UTS's new spaces
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Delving even deeper
Dobbin, G. & Warger, T. (2009). Learning Environments: Where space, technology, and culture converge. EDUCAUSE.
Read...
Orviz, A.F. (2010). Effective Collaboration in multi-disciplinary teams. Glasgow School of Art.
Read...